hter, and for whom she was ready to discard
all her legion of more attractive wooers.

With the coming of de Riom, the Duchesse entered on the last and worst
stage of her mis-spent life. Strange tales are told of the orgies of
which the Luxembourg, the splendid palace her father had given her, was
now the scene--orgies in which Madame de Mouchy and a Jesuit, one Father
Ringlet, took a part, and over which the evil de Riom ruled as "Lord of
merry disports." The Duchesse, now sunk to the lowest depths of
degradation, was the veriest puppet in his strong hands, flattered by
his coarse attentions and submitting to rudeness and ridicule such as
any grisette, with a grain of pride, would have resented.

When these scandalous "carryings-on" at the Luxembourg Palace reached
the Regent's ears and he ventured to read his daughter a severe lecture
on her conduct, she retaliated by snapping her fingers at him and
telling him in so many words to mind his own business. And to the tongue
of scandal that found voice everywhere, she turned a contemptuous ear.
She even locked and barred her palace gates to keep prying eyes at a
safe distance.

But, although she thus defied man, she was powerless to stay the steps
of fate. Her health, robust as it had been, was shattered by her
excesses; and when a serious illness assailed her, she was horrified to
find death so uncomfortably near. In her alarm she called for a priest
to shrive her; and the Abbe Languet came at the summons to bring her the
consolations of the Church. He refused point-blank, however, to give the
sinner absolution until the palace was purged of the presence of de Riom
and Madame de Mouchy, the arch-partners in her vices.

To this suggestion the Duchesse, perilous as her condition was, returned
an uncompromising "No!" If the Abbe would not absolve her--well, there
were other priests, less exacting, who would; and one such priest of
elastic conscience, a Franciscan friar, was summoned to her bedside.
Then ensued an unseemly struggle around the dying woman's bed, in which
the Regent, Cardinal Noailles, Madame de Mouchy, and the rival clerics
all played their parts.

While the obliging friar remained in the room awaiting an opportunity to
administer the last Sacrament, the Abbe and his curates kept watch at
the bedroom door to see that he did no such thing; and thus the siege
lasted for four days and nights until, the patient's crisis over, the
services of the Church were